Review: Mary Kay Satin Hands set

Jan 16, 2011 • Frances

Hello everyone! I've gotten a bit behind on my posting in the last week because I've been helping a family friend set up an online class, and MAN those things take a lot of hours of work at a computer. So anyway, when I wasn't working, the last thing I wanted to do was spend more time on the computer and now I have to play catch-up.

My birthday was a little over two weeks ago, and my best friend's mom sells Mary Kay products, so she gave me this Satin Hands set a a present since she knows that I'm interested in nail art and maintaining my hands in general. She doesn't know I have this blog and doesn't know that I'm reviewing this product, though.

The review is pretty photo-intensive, though, so the rest of it is after the jump. And if you aren't interested in this, rest assured that I'll have some more nail art up soon.

I figured to give this product a fair review, I'd take a "before" picture of my hand and an "after" picture to see if there was a visible difference. I haven't used Satin Hands before... to be honest, my normal exfoliating routine is washing my hands occasionally with Boraxo and then applying lotion. I know, I know, not exactly a standard beauty regime. Okay, let's try this out, then.

Hand, before. (click this & all pictures to embiggen, if you like) My cuticles & the skin around the sides of my nails are kind of a mess, and my thumb looks icky. Commence the hand satin-ifying.

Instructions. Okay, this seems doable. I don't know why you would use hand scrub around your eyes, but I suppose some people need these things spelled out for them. Onward!

The hand softener has a waxy and buttery consistency. It comes out of the tube very solid but melts with body warmth and is easy to rub in. I actually used about the amount shown in the picture to cover both hands.

Hands, after step one. They look greasier... I sat for a while to let this soak in before I moved on to step two.

I couldn't get a good picture of what the scrub looks like on its own. It looks like what's in the bottle, really. This was the step where things started getting tricky. Obviously, the scrub itself worked well enough, and my hands felt amazingly smooth afterward. However, the bottle design left something to be desired. I don't know whether I'm just a failure at opening soap dispensers (I don't think I am) or whether I got a defective bottle, but I could not for the life of me get it open. According to the helpful diagram on the top of the bottle, you twist the top of the dispenser around to the place where you can press it down. I couldn't. It spun round and round and round and the internal bits never lined up right. I actually had to pull the spout off, twist the plastic parts inside with pliers until they lined up, and put the top back on. It works, it just doesn't work how it was supposed to. I'm going to go with "I got a faulty bottle."

Last step! This is the hand cream. It has a very thin consistency, but I felt like my hands absorbed it very quickly and didn't feel too oily afterward.

Afterwards hands! They felt a lot smoother at this point, and they smelled really good (mmm, vanilla scented!) I'm not sure if the result is worth the retail value ($34.00 @ MaryKay.com. That link would be for purchase via my friend's mom, but you can buy online from your local Mary Kay salesperson too... you can't just buy it from the main Mary Kay mothership, though.), but it's a pretty large quantity of product and it seems to work, so maybe it is worth the $34.00. I just can't bear the thought of parting with so much money in one place on one thing! But, then again, I am a broke college student.

Finally, I smooshed the first picture and the last picture together in photoshop for easy comparison. Sorry for the slightly different light angles... by the time I took picture #2 some of the clouds had cleared and I had to use some cloth to get diffused light.

What do you think? Does this look like a good deal, or do you have a hand routine that you just adore already?